Teacher hits back at parent who complained about child who got zero in maths test

[elgordo38]

7 hours ago, rooster59 said:

There was even the suggestion that students should be allowed to pass so their feelings found not be hurt.

Then you better hope that the rest of your life gives you a pass. Your failing at foundation building. 

[elgordo38]

33 minutes ago, owl sees all said:

I actually did this at school in East London, England, out of protest at being made to sit an test/exam on RI (religious instruction). What I actually protested about was a couple of Jewish kids were exempt from the test.

 

Anyway I scored 3 out of 100. I told my dad how I did. He went to the school and asked how I got 3% for not attempting any questions.

 

One for the correct date; one for spelling name correctly and one for writing RI in the subject box. He was not best amused!!

 

He wrote a letter to the school asking if I could be exempt from any RI and tests in future.

Seems fair and logical

[Beats56]

I remember my mom sitting.me down and teaching me how to mutiply until I had it memorized. Never forgot that to this day. To many schools coddle kids now days. Same as little league sports were dont keep scores so little Johnny wont feel bad. Raising a bunch of pansys now days.

[elgordo38]

51 minutes ago, Penicillin said:

The importants of an education is lost on some people , but on the other hand ... and to quote Judge Smales from the movie Caddyshack... "Well, the world needs ditch diggers too"

Way to go movie mind would never have had your recall on this phrase. With robots and AI I wonder how long this profession will last.

[bkkgriz]

5 hours ago, missoura said:

In 99’ I held the position as an ‘ajarn’ at a prestigious Bangkok university.Class attendance for students was a possible option. If a student was a TV star or the latest monthly model then class was not necessary. Other occasional or no-show students included the football team, other sport teams, the seemingly daily special university activity to celebrate something, rich kids, not feeling well, didn’t have a car excuse, traffic jams and the list goes on. Had a student show up for the final exam. Which was fantastic, I finally got to meet him. He got a zero.

 

But not for the course. There was a committee (that I was not on) to determine the final grade for each class. No idea why. In the end, this one day student received an A for the course. 

 

I also taught a few graduate classes at a large Thailand university. Same, same…

Damn, I went to school in the wrong country. Think I'll go for a degree in Thailand. 4.0 here I come. 

 

I taught at an elementary school in BKK for almost a decade. Changed grades, complaining parents and general lack of interest in learning was the rule of the day there as well. 

[Lupatria]

7 hours ago, rooster59 said:

There was even the suggestion that students should be allowed to pass so their feelings found not be hurt.

...and Thailand 4.0 is nothing but a reference to where the country stands according to Anno Domini

[elgordo38]

3 minutes ago, Beats56 said:

I remember my mom sitting.me down and teaching me how to mutiply until I had it memorized. Never forgot that to this day. To many schools coddle kids now days. Same as little league sports were dont keep scores so little Johnny wont feel bad. Raising a bunch of pansys now days.

Your last comment seems a little hard but then maybe more hardness is required today. The jury is out on that one as its hard times vs mamby pambyism. You also felt a mother's love which in our day was given freely and absorbed. She had time to give this love while doing without automatic dish washers and clothes washers and all else that makes our life so easy today. Yea gads where did she find the time. 

[elgordo38]

4 minutes ago, bkkgriz said:

Damn, I went to school in the wrong country. Think I'll go for a degree in Thailand. 4.0 here I come. 

 

I taught at an elementary school in BKK for almost a decade. Changed grades, complaining parents and general lack of interest in learning was the rule of the day there as well. 

Sounds like your last sentence is reaching epidemic proportion here. Are teachers here to pass on wisdom or glorified baby sitters. Depends on whether your a teacher or parent I guess. 

[Rhys]

...would believe this happened on the university level, and the parents, university lecturers themselves showed up to school, unannounced and demand to see all teachers that failed their child...   Later it was discovered the child had a drug problem which the parent refused to acknowledge.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Rhys

[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, CNXBKKMAN said:

with assignments and the written English was shocking, often I could make no sense out it. 

I think some of these retired and are now keyboard bangers on TV. Some of the replies are so hard to make sense of and yet still seem to get likes. Go figure. Great minds group together as well as the minds that make no sense. Oh well they are all our brothers embrace em all. 

[elgordo38]

13 minutes ago, bkkgriz said:

  5 hours ago, missoura said:

In 99’ I held the position as an ‘ajarn’ at a prestigious Bangkok university.Class attendance for students was a possible option. If a student was a TV star or the latest monthly model then class was not necessary. Other occasional or no-show students included the football team, other sport teams, the seemingly daily special university activity to celebrate something, rich kids, not feeling well, didn’t have a car excuse, traffic jams and the list goes on. Had a student show up for the final exam. Which was fantastic, I finally got to meet him. He got a zero.

 

But not for the course. There was a committee (that I was not on) to determine the final grade for each class. No idea why. In the end, this one day student received an A for the course. 

 

I also taught a few graduate classes at a large Thailand university. Same, same…

Rather enlightening. We seem to be retaining the status quo with a slight downward movement. 

[elgordo38]

5 minutes ago, Rhys said:

...would believe this happened on the university level, and the parents, university lecturers themselves showed up to school, unannounced and demand to see all teachers that failed their child...   Later it was discovered the child had a drug problem which the parent refused to acknowledge.

There is no love like that of a parent. All children are good in the eyes of a parent till over the years they prove the parent wrong in their thinking. What a loss of face that is. 

[bkkgriz]

6 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

Sounds like your last sentence is reaching epidemic proportion here. Are teachers here to pass on wisdom or glorified baby sitters. Depends on whether your a teacher or parent I guess. 

I worked at a private school so really it was all about maximizing income. Regular classes during the day were just spent wasting time and babysitting. It was the after school classes teachers were interested in. Extra pay for those hours. Not much teaching got done in those classes either, but the money was better. It was an incredibly frustrating environment to work in. Constant interruptions to practice for sports day, Mother's Day, Father's day, etc. Through it all, I still had some great students who managed to learn. They were the exception though.

[elgordo38]

1 minute ago, bkkgriz said:

I worked at a private school so really it was all about maximizing income. Regular classes during the day were just spent wasting time and babysitting. It was the after school classes teachers were interested in. Extra pay for those hours. Not much teaching got done in those classes either, but the money was better. It was an incredibly frustrating environment to work in. Constant interruptions to practice for sports day, Mother's Day, Father's day, etc. Through it all, I still had some great students who managed to learn. They were the exception though.

The exceptions are the wheat the rest is chaff

[Prbkk]

Does it say that the parent asked for a passing grade for the kid? No. He asked for something other than zero, "one", to encourage the child. Some farangs have failed to comprehension test here.

 

[Rhys]

35 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

There is no love like that of a parent. All children are good in the eyes of a parent till over the years they prove the parent wrong in their thinking. What a loss of face that is. 

 

 

...another episode comes to mind... A 6th-year university senior failed his courses and failed his English class from a Thai teacher...  The student sent an Email to the teacher, begging her not to fail him yet again because he would have to work in his father's factory...   She failed him again...

 

 

... yet the most interesting was in China.... regarding lost of face...the young student was not interested in learning and just played about all day.  The school has an open house and the teachers gave a sample lesson.  The young cool aid student, a little boy, was given a very simple question... he answered wrong the parent, the mom, got up and Whump him upside his head.    The teacher had to bit his lip from laughing...

Edited May 20, 2017 by Rhys

[elgordo38]

3 minutes ago, Rhys said:

 

 

...another episode comes to mind... A 6th-year university senior failed his courses and failed his English class from a Thai teacher...  The student sent an Email to the teacher, begging her not to fail him yet again because he would have to work in his father's factory...   She failed him again...

There is a glimmer of hope here that success my yet rise from failure. 

[reenatinnakor]

Is there a Thai language link for this story? I want to show the wife!

I have always complained my kids are dumb but still get high marks in the previous school. Now they are at a tougher school and failing everything! Thai education system is so messed up, rarely will you find a school that pushes the kids.

[Krataiboy]

Can't wait for the robots to take over from Thai teachers. Artificial Intelligence has got to be better than the stuff between the ears of most of the kuhn kroos I run into here.

[SiamBeast]

Maths do not care about your feelings - same for everything else, except your mom.

 

Maths are the base of logic (which explains why Thais are not good at it). There is a math problem, steps to take, and a solution. It's all logical - I got 100% over half of the time in math except when I made "attention mistakes" simply because I followed the logic. There's nothing hard here: either you can think, or you cannot. This kid cannot, and therefore got zero. This is fair for all other students who made efforts and got higher grades because they deserved it.

[FredNL]

A friend was once IT teacher on a "not-to-be-named" Thai university where most of the System Engineers got their degree "Cum Laude".

All study material was in English, of the 60 students (59 males and 1 female) there was only 1 that could speak English. Yes, she came from Nigeria. The rest were Kings of Candy Crush. The only one that paid attention and learned something was the Nigerian student. But at the end of the year Thailand had 59 more IT "experts". The only one that passed all exams was the girl from Nigeria. The rest failed but all passed "Cum Laude"....

[sanukjim]

7 hours ago, darksidedog said:

What an amazingly stupid idea. Give the kids a pass when they can't get a single question right. And what exactly then happens when the kid leaves school?

Is he going to feel good about himself when he is hopelessly unemployable?

The parent who complained should probably spend more time with his kid, helping him to understand how to do the work and less time whingeing.

When he leaves school without an education then he can always work in the government as with so many of the other dxmmys there he wont be noticed.

[louse1953]

6 hours ago, missoura said:

In 99’ I held the position as an ‘ajarn’ at a prestigious Bangkok university.Class attendance for students was a possible option. If a student was a TV star or the latest monthly model then class was not necessary. Other occasional or no-show students included the football team, other sport teams, the seemingly daily special university activity to celebrate something, rich kids, not feeling well, didn’t have a car excuse, traffic jams and the list goes on. Had a student show up for the final exam. Which was fantastic, I finally got to meet him. He got a zero.

 

But not for the course. There was a committee (that I was not on) to determine the final grade for each class. No idea why. In the end, this one day student received an A for the course. 

 

I also taught a few graduate classes at a large Thailand university. Same, same…

That's why a uni degree in Thailand is worthless.

[KhunBENQ]

7 hours ago, darksidedog said:

And what exactly then happens when the kid leaves school?

Leaving an engineering college with a degree (with "just enough" grades) and soon after selling squid on the market.

Big six digit number of waisted Baht (maybe close to seven digit).

It's the son of the sister in law.

He now changed from selling squid to opening some kind of shop (no idea what).

Guess he needed some seed capital for that

[Lucky mike]

More study less phone !

[elgordo38]

48 minutes ago, reenatinnakor said:

Is there a Thai language link for this story? I want to show the wife!

I have always complained my kids are dumb but still get high marks in the previous school. Now they are at a tougher school and failing everything! Thai education system is so messed up, rarely will you find a school that pushes the kids.

So Sad. Maybe you caught it in time and can turn it around. Maternalism is dreaming/wishing/wanting Paternalism is realism. I am a male of course. My daughter keeps wanting more grandchildren for an uncertain future which I think does the child no favor. It only winds up the female ticking clock. 

[Prbkk]

46 minutes ago, SiamBeast said:

Maths do not care about your feelings - same for everything else, except your mom.

 

Maths are the base of logic (which explains why Thais are not good at it). There is a math problem, steps to take, and a solution. It's all logical - I got 100% over half of the time in math except when I made "attention mistakes" simply because I followed the logic. There's nothing hard here: either you can think, or you cannot. This kid cannot, and therefore got zero. This is fair for all other students who made efforts and got higher grades because they deserved it.

Technically correct but giving a zero is demeaning, humiliating, discouraging, soul destroying. We don't know the full story or anything about the circumstances of the kid.

What we do know us that the best teachers are those that are able to motivate, encourage, inspire. Sadly the worst ones seem to take a perverse delight in the opposite.

I don't say "pass everyone regardless of scores" or suggest falsifying results; but leave the teachers with some discretion in order to offer encouragement. Yes, maybe it's " Goodbye, Mr Chips" view of education but I've seen it work ( second hand), particularly with shy kids and "late bloomers".

[darksidedog]

Late Bloomers? You can only leave blooming late so long. Thais leave school at 16. Maybe changing the school leaving age to say 45, might be a solution.

[Lucky mike]

Maybe a participating award/mark ?

[samsensam]

 

how about one mark for writing your name at the top of the test paper, then everyone will be happy,

 

or, if the child is struggling at maths the parents help the child at home or get a family member to help (there must be someone who can do maths) or pay for a tutor